Steve Jones is the editor of SQLServerCentral.com and visits a wide variety of data related topics in his daily editorial. Steve has spent years working as a DBA and general purpose Windows administrator, primarily working with SQL Server since it was ported from Sybase in 1990. You can follow Steve on Twitter at twitter.com/way0utwest

Archives: May 2012

I’ve done quite a bit of speaking over the last few years, which has required a lot of travel. I had 15 events that I attended last year, only one of which was in Denver, so I spent quite a few days on a plane.

I’ve had a few friends using standing desks for sometime. I first heard about Greg Gonzalez (sqlSentry | Blog | @SQLSensei), fellow runner and one of the smartest SQL people using a treadmill desk. I saw it in his office at SQLSentry a few years ago, and was… Read more

One of the keys to managing a large production SQL Server environment is being aware of changes that are taking place in the environment, and preventing potentially harmful changes. There are any number of ways to do this: triggers, auditing, PMB, third party monitoring, and more.

This article about exercising when you can is really interesting. It contains a number of hints about exercising and fitting it in, but fitting it into your life, as you live it. I especially like the note about the fact that you will lose time in your life every month… Read more

I read the confessions of a recovering Lifehacker and thought it was an interesting read. It seems that the author has started to realize that while you can make some differences in the small stuff in your life, it’s just small stuff. It’s also important not to let the organization,… Read more

I love SQL Prompt as an add-in for SSMS. The intellisense is very handy for me and I’ve gotten used to certain shortcut combinations that make it easy for me to write T-SQL quickly and get information on parameters without opening Books Online. It’s works better than the native intellisense… Read more

Cloud computing doesn’t seem to have any great definition. Like the physical structures is is named for, it is amorphous, with no defined boundaries, and often, without a recognizable shape. There are even a whole host of different acronyms (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), which attempt to provide… Read more

Change Tracking (CT) and Change Data Capture (CDC) were both added to SQL Server in 2008. At first it seems like these two items ought to be synonyms, but they’re separate features. They are similar, but there are some differences, and you might choose to use them in different situations. Read more

I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes I honked again. Since this was going to be my last ride of my shift I thought about just driving away, but instead I… Read more